The raw number of first time unemployment claims averaged 336K per week in the last month in today's report. The seasonally-adjusted 4-week average number of first time claims for unemployment is higher at 361,000.
The raw figure of 336K yields an annualized 17.5 million, the seasonally-adjusted number 18.8 million. Both are still in excess of the annual actuals for 2006 or 2007, before the financial crisis, which were 16.2 million and 16.7 million respectively.
Actual claims for 2012 were 19.4 million, so we are right now in the last month still doing better than last year's overall rate of claims, at roughly 10% higher than pre-crisis averages. However, the average of all the raw claims for 2013 year to date is running at 375,000 per week, which annualized is 19.5 million, just slightly worse than last year.
At the height of the unemployment crisis in 2009 the raw number of first time claims totaled 29.5 million for the year, a rate of 567,000 per week.
Today's report is here. The link to past data which was unusually missing in last week's report got put back in today's.
